Chapter Eleven* — Maya

PRESENT

Muffled voices sounded in the background. My head and wrists hurt like a motherfucker. Why was it so damn difficult to open my eyes? It took all of my energy to force my eyelids open.

Where am I?

White walls, white bedding, white ceilings. So much white.

I'm pretty sure this isn’t what heaven looks like—or hell for that matter.

“You’re awake.” A deep voice floated toward me. Fuck.

Further proof that I’m still alive.

I turned my head slowly toward the sound, and fuck me if the man who inhabited every one of my nightmares wasn’t standing there, arms crossed over his chest, t-shirt stretched to hell as his muscles bulged. I swallowed the lump in my throat. The way his eyebrows knit together and his lips pursed as he glared at me made my stomach roil.

Maybe this is hell after all.

“Maya. That was a fucking stupid thing to do,” Oliver grumbled.

“Back off,” a man wearing a white coat and holding a clipboard warned, “she’s been through a lot.”

Yeah, you must be the doctor. Tell the bastard to leave me alone.

He had no right interfering in my life. Wasn’t he the one who always said we were nothing to one another? I didn’t need—or want—fucking saving.

My stepbrother moved forward and took my hand in his, stroking the bandage with his thumb. If I weren’t already lying flat on my back, I'd be falling over, stunned that he’d touched me. In all these years, he’d avoided most forms of contact. A shiver ran up my spine as his finger traced up my arm, running alongside the drip.

“You and I need to talk, little bee.” The smirk on his lips didn’t bode well. If I weren’t attached to all sorts of wires, I would’ve reached out and smacked it right off his face.

The doctor smiled at us. “Since you’re family, I’ll allow you to stay. I'm guessing she wants to thank you for saving her life,” he said, nodding in my direction.  “But ten minutes at the most—my patient needs to rest.”

Thank him? Fuck no. Not in this lifetime. That asshole was part of the reason I was here and in this state, wrists banded and fucking drips stuck into me. And now—now he wanted to play big brother? What the fuck was going on?

The doctor turned on his heels and left the room.

“Where the hell am I? What hospital did you bring me to?”

“Calm down, little sis; don’t get your blood pressure sky high.”

“Drop the little sis bullshit; I don’t buy it for a second. You hate my guts as much as I hate yours. You’ve tormented me for years, so don't pretend that you care now,” I hissed.

He held up both hands, palms facing me. “Ah, you know me too well.”

“So why did you bring me here? Why not just leave me to bleed out?” I blinked fast, biting back tears. No way in hell would I let him see how he was affecting me.

He chuckled. “Where’s the fun in that? Who would I have left to play with? You’re not escaping me that easily. In fact, you’re not ever getting away from me.”

“Wh . . . what?”

“You heard me.” He pulled a chair up close to the bed and sat down. His gaze pierced mine until I lowered my eyes. For the first time I couldn’t study my hands like I usually did when I wanted to avoid looking at my stepbrother. “To answer your question, you’re in a clinic—one that specializes in helping failed suicide victims.” He paused to shake his head and tut.

Right now I hated him with every breath left in my body.

“Does my father know?” I whispered. Cringing at the thought, blood rushed to my cheeks and flooded my face with heat.

He cocked his head and scrutinized my face before answering. “No. I think you owe me some gratitude, or at least some sort of thanks for sparing the old prick the grief of losing both his wife and daughter to suicide.”

Letting out a long breath, I closed my eyes. My father would be devastated. I’d do anything to spare him more pain.

“I didn’t mean to cut so deep. I . . . um.” My throat thickened so I could hardly speak.

“How long have you been self harming? By the cuts on your arms and legs, it's been going on for a while. Why would you, of all people, do such a stupid fucking thing?” His voice was hard and cold. “I thought you were smart, Maya.” The accusation in his voice cut deep. Nearly as deep as the blade. “I don’t like what you’re doing to your perfect little body.”

Perfect little body?

Of course he’d seen my damn legs when he found me. I was in my underwear—the sexy shit I'd bought online. 

I shrugged. “It's complicated,” I said softly, keeping my eyes shut. An asshole like him couldn’t ever understand. I wasn’t going to waste my breath trying to explain. The main thing was that Daddy never found out. But knowing Oliver as I did, I also knew his silence was going to cost me dearly.

What would he blackmail me into doing this time? Over the years he’d made me do all kinds of stupid things when he found out something about me that I didn’t want my father to know. Like the time he made me polish his shoes and make his breakfast every morning of winter break when I was thirteen. And I’d never forget the night in the bathroom because he caught Calvin Jones kissing me, his tongue down my throat at Larissa’s party. It was the first time Oliver really went too far.

It wasn’t so much that he made me do dirty things for his pleasure that messed me up—deep down I was ready for that and I wanted it as much as he did. No, that wasn't what made me buy my first set of blades.

It was the fact that he left immediately after and didn’t come back for two years. Two long fucking years. That’s what fucked with my mind.

He’d left—just like Mom—abandoning me and leaving me behind with fucked up emotions that I didn’t have a clue how to deal with. Without any explanation. How did he think I would take that after everything he’d said and done?

He thought it wouldn’t affect me? Idiot.

Yeah, I hate him—despise him. Yet I ached for him.

In my body.

In my heart.

In my fucking soul.

Ached so fucking much it was more painful than any cutting I’d done.

I sighed, a long, slow breath expelling from my lungs. “What do you want?”

“This time I want something different from you in exchange for my silence. Plus I saved your life, you know. You owe me something extra special for that.”

“What?” Oh God.

He drew in a long breath but didn’t speak. My eyes fluttered open and I watched his handsome face as different emotions flickered in his dark eyes. Eventually his gaze locked onto mine. I sucked in a shuddering breath at what I saw there. Lust. Raw, carnal lust. I'd seen it in his eyes before, but never as intense as this. Oliver’s usual brown orbs were nearly black, his pupils fully dilated. It scared the shit out of me. The blood drained from my face and a cold shiver shook my body.

This isn’t good.

I waited, holding my breath for what felt like an eternity. His hand closed over mine.

“I want you. Your body.”

My mouth dropped open. “Oliver.”

His voice was hoarse and low. “I want sex. Whenever. However. No arguments.”

Sex?

Sweet Lord, my head was spinning. My core clenched the way it had so many times before when I’d lain in my bed and touched myself while thinking of my stepbrother. The chiseled body he wasn’t shy to parade around the house wearing only boxers that sat low on his hips, the deep V that cut into the sides of his groin, the dark hair leading south. Shame and desire washed over me, my heart beating like a drum.

Dirty.

Illicit.

Forbidden.

I was wrong after all. I had died and gone to hell. And my stepbrother was the devil himself, showing me the way to burn for eternity.